The Whole 30, Day 4

This week is flying by! This morning I was in a rush to get to work, and I made a smoothie as I was running out the door. I put it in my coffee mug, since I no longer enjoy my coffee (geez, thanks Whole 9) 😉

It was the same smoothie as yesterday, and I did have a small cup of black coffee. I liked Whole 9’s Tweet this morning that “If you have to add something to your coffee to make it taste good, you are either drinking poor quality coffee or you really don’t like the taste of coffee.” I have realized this week that I fall into the latter category – I really dislike the taste of coffee. What I really love is the ritual of having something warm and sweet in the morning as I start my day. Before we had a Keurig, Dave made my coffee for me every morning just the way I like it, and it was a special little ritual for us. Even now, if I’m running late, he will still make it. So, I realized that it’s not really the coffee I like, but what it signifies. I think this is a really important realization! So many of our rituals are based around food – we continue them day after day without really thinking about whether they are good for us or not. Doing an intense 30 day focus on eliminating certain foods makes you really look at what you put in your mouth and why you do it. This has been the most valuable lesson yet – to stop and think about what I am doing and whether it supports me in my goal of living a healthy, active lifestyle. I realize that my one cup of coffee in the morning has turned to two cups just to get going, and many days a third cup about 4 pm to make it through the evening with work, kids’ homework and running around to sports and activities. Since I no longer enjoy my sweet coffee, I only drink one cup in the morning now. I think this is a huge reason why I am sleeping better at night – that afternoon coffee was killing me, even though it felt like it woke me up. So, it’s a good thing to be down to one cup, and I may switch to tea at some point.

I grabbed some snacks to bring to work and ate them halfway through my day (almond butter, macadamias, tea) and then went to a kabob place on the way home from work at 3pm. I went with something simple to stay away from problematic ingredients – ground beef and onion kabob with salad and water. It was really filling and good.

For dinner, we got to try out our new Kitchen Aid mixer. We have wanted one for a long time, and finally got it for Christmas this year. So, Dave ground salmon fillets with the meat grinder attachment and mixed in some other fantastic stuff to make salmon patties. Delicious! We ate them with “lettuce buns” and apple slices. (And more water for me). I really don’t miss my glass of wine that much anymore. Just like what happened with the coffee, I have realized that the one glass of wine became two some nights, and some nights it was NorCal Margaritas instead of wine. I believe that cutting out alcohol has also helped me to sleep better and to wake up feeling better. Because of my Hashimoto’s, I never know what alcohol is going to do to me any given night – some nights I feel awful after one glass, some nights I am fine after 2 or 3 glasses at a dinner party or restaurant. There is no way for me to know until the next day. I really like waking up feeling good, so I doubt I will go back to nightly consumption of wine after these 30 days.